June 9, 2021 — Growing up in a village in Southwest Alaska, Sarah Thiele had a childhood defined by sockeye salmon.
Her father caught the fish in summer by the net-full as a commercial fisherman while her mother would cure and cold-smoke hundreds of fillets so Thiele and her eight siblings, plus the family’s team of sled dogs, could dine on sockeye year-round.
Now 66, Thiele is a board member of the Pedro Bay Corp., an Alaska Native group that owns land near Bristol Bay, the site of the most prolific sockeye fishery in the world. It is also the precise spot where the backers of the Pebble Mine hope to build a road to transport ore.
Late last month, Thiele and nearly 90 percent of the corporation’s shareholders voted to let the Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit organization, buy conservation easements on more than 44,000 acres and make the land off limits to future development – including the mining road.
“I feel like we are doing our mission of preserving our heritage and our pristine lands from any development,” she said. “That is totally our identity, the fish and our land.”
In exchange for the surface rights, the corporation would receive nearly $20 million, including $500,000 for education and cultural programs for those in the village.
Read the full story from The Washington Post at Anchorage Daily News